The strategy behind Forbes new book business

Ian Burrell of The Drum looks at the strategy behind Forbes new book imprint.

Burrell writes, “It is a bet based not on the traditional model of championing titles that shift units at retail. Rather, it speaks to the very modern phenomenon of using a book as a personal branding tool. In today’s world of business, anyone who is anyone has a book.

“ForbesBooks will produce titles that the authors pay for themselves. A business figure might pay (US) $70,000 or more for the prestige of having the endorsement of Forbes on a handsome hardback that he or she can distribute among their network. Half of that sum would typically be spent on producing the product and the other half on marketing and promotion.

“‘The vision is that a ForbesBooks author would be a CEO, a senior executive, an entrepreneur… someone who has a significant body of work in a particular field [and who] has enough to say to make a quality book,’ says Nina La France, senior vice president in consumer marketing and business development at Forbes Media, owners of Forbes magazine, which has its centenary next year.

“The first three book titles will be published on 15 January. The business is being launched in the US but – with Forbes publishing its magazine in 37 countries – there is an expectation that it will be a global operation.”

Chris Roush is the Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.